


Inside My Head

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Autistic Peter Parker, Friendship, Gen, Secret Identity, Telepathy, Trust
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-08
Updated: 2017-08-08
Packaged: 2018-12-13 00:16:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11748141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: Peter has never trusted anyone with the truth before - he can hear the thoughts of others. But with all this Avengers business and saving the world, he has to tell someone. He just didn't know that bringing one secret to light would cause a whole series of events that would change the relationship he had with his heroes forever.





	Inside My Head

Peter wandered down the street, his fingertips pressed up against his earbuds to try and shut everything else out. It sort of worked, and by sort of he meant not at all but at least there was something vaguely pleasant in his head as well as all the other stuff. Fifteen minutes until he made it home, if he wanted to. Five to the alley he’d picked today to leave his school stuff. He should definitely try and get in a good patrol today, seeing as he hadn’t bothered since Monday. He swore that things had been getting a lot louder lately. 

He kept his eyes on the ground as he walked, turning right into a narrow alleyway and tossing his bag into a nice, safe corner. He could hear that someone, somewhere, was up to no good, so he dragged a sheet of corrugated iron that was lying around to cover up the backpack. No one would think to look there.

Patrol was pretty normal. Using the newish super senses and his not so new super brain (or whatever it was - he’d never told anyone or got it checked out), it was pretty easy to find out who was up to no good and put a stop to it. After a few hours he decided to call it a day, knowing that he was getting to the point where everything was too loud for him to function if someone started wishing him harm while he was fighting them.

Heading back to the alleyway, Peter was pleased to find that no one had stolen his backpack. That made a pleasant change from his usual after-patrol findings. He slung it on over his shoulders, jamming his headphones back in and turning the music up another couple of notches. Why did New York City have to be so noisy? He was probably killing his ears with music this loud, but when everything else was screaming at him, he needed it.

He almost groaned out loud when his phone went off. He definitely groaned out loud when he saw who had just texted him. ‘Sorry to bother you on a school night,’ the text read, and Peter scowled, ‘but something big is incoming and we need a helping hand or two.’

‘Where are you meeting me?’ That was all he texted back, even though he could think of many things that he would like to say to Tony, most of which Aunt May would really disapprove of. There was no point in arguing with an Avenger, that was something he had learned a long time ago.

‘If you swing about four blocks east, we’re heading past there in six minutes or so. Make sure you’re suited up, the others are along for the ride too.’ Peter sighed. He knew that logically, yes, the other Avengers would be around, but it was so hard to keep their thoughts to himself when he was around them. Especially Thor. Thor thought some very interesting things sometimes. Mostly they involved some very interesting-looking place that Peter presumed was Asgard. Or coffee. He thought about coffee a fair bit, too. 

He tugged back on his mask, slinging his backpack back behind the corrugated iron sheet. Hopefully whatever the Avengers needed help with wasn’t going to be too loud.

-

“Hey Spider-Man, how are you holding up?” Captain America called through the comms and Peter tried his very hardest not to wince. It turned out that aliens in Houston - Texas, of all the godforsaken places an alien could invade - were in fact very loud, and he was close to just collapsing and shutting everything out.

“I’m fine,” he said. Better to lie and not cause anyone any panic. Peter wished there was some way he could have brought his headphones, or at least a pair of earplugs. When this was over, he was going to run all the way to Antarctica and hope that his thought-hearing power didn’t extend to penguins.

“We’re nearly done on this front,” Iron Man called, and Peter hoped he didn’t physically show his relief there. His thought power did not extend to aliens, but it did extend to the people he was fighting with and all the civilians who were panicking. He felt like the whole world was pressing in around him. He really needed a break from all of this fighting. Stumbling away, he leaned back against a wall, pressing his hands over his ears and trying not to let out any pained noises over the comms channel. The last thing he needed right now was to be given away.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on all the stimuli that were left. The sound of thoughts screaming against the barrier he had up around his mind. When did he raise that? Sometimes when he did that, really weird shit happened, so he carefully focused on lowering it without deafening himself. There was still the roar of the battle past his hypersensitive ears, too. He tried to focus on that. Real noise, not the strange, chaotic babble of thoughts. He would have hoped that after dealing with this for all of his life, he would be used to the noises of everyone else’s thoughts. But no, it was just as excruciatingly loud and unbearable as it always had been.

“Spider-Man? Anything over where you are?” Falcon asked. Peter shook his head before realising that maybe he should say something because actually they couldn’t hear the agreement in his thoughts.

“Nothing I can see that you guys don’t already have covered,” he said. Hopefully there wasn’t anything. Because he couldn’t see a thing with his eyes closed and he couldn’t hear alien thoughts.

Then his senses prickled with danger, and he barely had time to open his eyes and tense his muscles before something rather large and heavy slammed into his side, and he was startled back into the real world to find an alien pinning him to the floor and people screaming, screaming, there was so much noise. He tried to shout over the comms, just about summoning the strength to fire his web-shooter into the alien’s face.

“So much for nothing!” Sam called, but there was only the faintest hint of humour in his voice. Peter didn’t respond, barely even registering the words until the alien was hit across the back of the neck by Thor’s hammer.

“Thanks,” he managed, and Thor smiled at him. Loud thoughts reached out to him about helping a comrade in need, which was nice. Thor never seemed to get annoyed with them.

Peter scrambled up to his feet, wiping alien drool off of his chest and glancing around. He saw Captain America slam his shield into an alien’s face, saw Black Widow kick one quite alarmingly hard, and then there seemed to be relative peace at last.

“Back to the Quinjet, everyone,” Captain America said. “We’ll be out here again once it’s calmed down to help with the clear up.” Peter bit his lip. He didn’t want to get on the Quinjet and face up to an hour or two of being in a confined space with people he knew far too well considering they knew nothing about him.

“Okay…” He knew he didn’t sound enthusiastic about that, but never mind. Peter purposefully did his best to trail behind the others as they walked back, wanting to distance himself just a little from all of their noisy thoughts. It worked, to a small extent.

“How are you doing?” Wanda fell into step beside him, which was decidedly suspicious because generally she flew places when they were on the field. Also, Peter knew she could read minds, even though she said she wouldn’t read his. He wished he had the control over his powers that she did.

“Fine,” was his automatic response. That was what was expected from him, although...not from Wanda. Something in her mind was different- she didn’t expect him to be alright, she seemed to know that something was wrong here. She could feel these things, his mind was telling him, and she could feel his utter exhaustion. “Could be better. Just need a bit of rest, you know?”

“Are your senses very strong?” She asked the question like she didn’t know the answer already, but he obliged and nodded anyway. “Are these things difficult for you? Chaotic, unpredictable things?”

“I suppose they can be,” he said. Cautious. He didn’t want to ask for help- no one else here needed help dealing with their powers. They owned them, they knew exactly how to fight with them and use every little thing to their advantage. “Why d’you ask?”

“Your mind is practically projecting your confusion and...how overwhelmed you are. But during the battle it stopped very suddenly and I thought there might be something very wrong.” Peter tried not to show how alarmed he was that she could sense that passively, but he had no idea if he could hide his emotions like that.

“I’m fine.” Wanda probably knew very well now that that wasn’t true, but he had to at least make an attempt to convince her. “I’ve got it all under control, honestly. I don’t- it’s normal for me. I’ll be okay.”

“If there’s anything we can do to help, don’t be afraid to ask,” she said. “I know you’re a secretive man, Spider-Man. You won’t even tell us your first name, and I understand that. I think I would have liked anonymity, if I could ever have had it, but I didn’t get that choice. Just because you don’t want us to know about you doesn’t mean that we can’t know what we can do to make you stronger.”

“I’m fine!” Peter tried to laugh her comments off, speeding up and hurrying on board the Quinjet. He didn’t want to spend any longer than was necessary discussing his secret identity, especially not with someone who could read minds and reveal him.

He knew, though, that he couldn’t keep it hidden forever. He just had to keep it hidden until he was - wait, how old was Wanda when she joined the Avengers? Probably about nineteen or twenty, so he had to keep it hidden for about another four years before he revealed his age. By that point, he’d be old enough to be an adult and make decisions for himself as well as being both old enough and experienced enough for them to take him seriously.

Peter didn’t join in the conversation that the others were having in the Quinjet- he needed to be alone, as far away from any noisy thoughts as he could get. He hunched himself up in a corner, tucking his knees up to his chin with a sigh. This was utterly exhausting and he really needed a break. He shouldn’t have gone on that patrol today, but he had no way of knowing that he was going to be called out. The Avengers actually having use for him was incredibly rare.

The only thing he could do now was get home and sleep for as long as possible. Oh, fuck, Aunt May was going to be so angry. What time was it in New York by now? She was literally going to gut him alive. Especially now he’d run out of time and energy to do his homework so he was probably going to get a penalty to his grade again.

The flight back home was long and utterly exhausting for Peter. He could swear that flying over a city meant that he could hear more people’s thoughts, which sucked. God, he didn’t want to go home and sit in an apartment in the middle of a busy New York neighbourhood. He was just so, so fed up of how loud everything was all of the time.

“I- so there’s a thing that I, um, didn’t mention?” He said. Fuck, he was going to regret this later. He was regretting it now and he’d barely even started. Immediately, heads turned to watch him. “I, um, it’s kinda important but it isn’t part of the spider stuff and- look, I was stupid to not mention it but I can’t take that back now, okay?”

“What is it?” Iron Man- looking more like the ‘protective dad Tony’ now- sat forwards, looking concerned. He took his helmet off, looking Peter right in the eyes just so that he could give him the Concerned Glare™.

“I can, uh, don’t be weird about this please,” he said, shooting a glance quickly at a couple of the more easily offended Avengers. His mind would warn him if they were going to lunge at him, but they were in a jet and he really didn’t want that. “But, um, I’m kinda telepathic?”

“I knew it,” Wanda said almost immediately. Peter wasn’t sure whether that should offend him or amuse him. It was nice she’d kept it to herself, though?  
“Can you control it?” Tony again, definitely in full on ‘I have parental responsibility for you at the moment’ mode. 

“No,” Peter said honestly. No point lying any more. “It just happens. I can shut it out, but weird stuff happens when I do that. Also I drop off Wanda’s mind map thing.” He glanced over at Wanda, who nodded. Everyone was looking at him now.

“So you can hear our thoughts?” Tony asked. Peter knew the question that was coming now. “So what am I thinking right now?”

“You’re really worried about me. You just thought something inappropriate- and now you’re trying to hide it- and you’re thinking about me the first time you met me.” Peter bit his lip. There was a moment of silence where everyone was thinking very loudly about how they now needed to hide their thoughts.

“I think we might need to take this back to HQ,” Tony said, and Peter nodded. He knew that they probably needed to figure this out because it was sort of big and he did kinda want to know what it was. He’d had this ability for basically as long as he could remember and if they could find a source of it, maybe they could help.

“Instead of going back to my aunt’s apartment?” Tony nodded. “Good. Please. It- it should be quieter at HQ, I think. Fewer people around.” Much fewer. Twenty, as opposed to the twenty thousand people that were within radius of his telepathy at home.

“Is it proximity based?” Tony asked. Peter could see Bruce taking notes on a small screen a few seats away. He didn’t really mind, he trusted these people with this information. Particularly because no one else knew about it, which was honestly super weird. No one had ever found out before and he’d never spoken about it before.

“Yeah, kind of. I think it is, but it works in a really wide proximity.” Peter shrugged a little awkwardly. “Like, I can hear the people down there. Some of them. The loud ones.” He pointed at the floor of the Quinjet, quieting for a moment to listen more closely to thoughts. “There’s two people having an argument about coffee and thinking about how wrong the other person is. Someone else is thinking really hard about whether to order onions on their hotdog.”

“The answer is no,” Sam said, and Tony whirled round, mockingly offended.

“Tony’s considering cutting off your caffeine supply, but in a sort of sarcastic way in his head,” he said, thoroughly enjoying the new power he was suddenly allowed to show.

“So, very wide proximity, and also based on thought strength? Thought conviction, maybe focus?” Tony asked. Peter shrugged.

“I’m sure that if someone thought really hard, I could hear them from the other side of the world,” he said. “Maybe. Who knows? I don’t think anyone can be that loud.”  
“I probably could,” Wanda said. Peter believed her. She seemed like the sort of person who could kill a man (or an unfortunate spidery not-quite-a-man-yet) with just a glare and a well-placed thought. 

“Maybe we can test it some time, but, uh...not here. I don’t want you to break my head. Please.” He could hear half the Avengers laughing in their heads. “I’ve been listening to loud people all day and I’m kinda tired.”

“Is it still term time?” Tony asked, and Peter’s internal secret identity alert alarm bells all went off at the same time. Grudgingly, he nodded. He understood that Tony had to check, but did he really have to reveal his age to everyone here?

“Term time? Tony, you didn’t tell us this guy was a kid.” Now Steve was doing the Dad Voice, and although normally Peter would be thrilled to have Captain America be so concerned about him, now was really not one of those times. 

“Yeah, well, it didn’t seem relevant. It’s a Monday, so we can’t steal him for longer than a night. Bruce, how many tests can we do in one night?”

“Nothing scientific,” Bruce said. “We’ll have to have him back on Friday night if we want to get anything done.” Normally, Peter would be thrilled to be spending time with the Avengers, but he was honestly scared that if he got closer to them outside of the battlefield they’d find out who he was.

“I don’t think we should be asking anything of a kid,” Steve said. His thoughts were buzzing and Peter could tell he wasn’t going to leave it alone.

“But I want it,” Peter insisted. Maybe- maybe Tony and Bruce could figure out some sort of a way to stop all of this. Even temporarily. Peter didn’t care what he had to do, he would even let them stick a massive needle in him if it meant that he could get just one day free of all of this noise.

“If he needs a break from everything, we should let him stay the night at HQ,” Bruce said firmly. “I mean, I know better than anyone what it’s like to need a break. Remember India?” Peter had no idea what had happened in India, but Black Widow nodded grimly and that seemed like a pretty good indication of things.

“As long as you’re going to take him straight back to school tomorrow morning,” Steve said. “Also, I hate to ask you something you must consider personal, Spider-Man, but what’s your first name?”

“Peter,” he said, hoping they couldn’t find him from that. Peter wasn’t exactly a common name these days but it wasn’t super unique. It was safe.

“Well, it’s nice to meet you, Peter,” Steve said with a smile.


End file.
